more protein means gaining more muscle
here to listen to a 60 second summary of this article
by Cris LaBossiere
is one of the more staple myths in the diet and fitness industry.
Many who train with weights to achieve larger muscles believe
with a religious tenacity that simply eating more protein
while lifting heavy weights will result in rapid growth of
huge muscles. Not gaining muscle fast enough? Eat more protein!
- Or so goes the myth.
fact one pound of muscle is about 72% water and contains about
100 grams of protein. This being the case, shouldn't the emphases
be on consuming more water to increase muscle size? This also
is overly simplistic. Larger muscle cells are synthesized
a little bit at a time as a response to the stimulus of a
stress placed on the muscle such as during weight lifting.
The maximum amount of muscle the average human male can synthesize
in one month of proper training is about one pound of lean
muscle mass, often much less. It's important to note that
hypertrophy may not begin until after two months of weight
training as the initial response to weight training is mostly
neural (increased efficiency of brain and central nervous
system recruiting muscle fibers) and not an increase in muscle
one pound of muscle containing 100 grams of protein, to gain
one pound of muscle in one month requires about an extra 3.3
grams of protein per day to support the exercise (weight lifting)
that provides the stimulus for muscle synthesis.
our bodies are not perfectly efficient, we'll need to consume
a little more protein to make up for the "cost"
of eating, digesting, transporting, and converting dietary
protein into muscle. The general recommendation for protein
intake for those building muscle mass or those partaking in
regular intensive or extensive (long duration) exercise is
about 1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass per day.
Non exercisers require only about 0.8 - 1 gram of protein
per/kg/ day, regular exercisers up to 1.5g/ kg/ day. Females
have less testosterone, a critical hormone involved in synthesizing
more muscle, so typically females gain less muscle mass than
a male even with the same relative and absolute amount of
typical "let down" of not gaining muscle mass is
caused by two main factors:
- Unrealistic expectations of mass gains
#2 - Improper training/ recovery and poor nutrition
many people are pulled in by the exaggerated claims of building
muscle fast. The claims are so prevalent that they easily
make up the majority of reference material pertaining to building
muscle, so much so that when the real facts of building muscle
are presented the real facts are ignored and treated like
second class information. However when people follow the recommendations
for building muscle fast it becomes obvious within a few months
that they just can't match those unrealistic expectations
and become frustrated. This in turn typically leads a person
to trying more gimmicks and often employing a technique known
as "stacking" where multiple supposed muscle building
supplements are used in a possibly dangerous combination,
but also to no avail.
many people trying to gain muscle mass have trouble gaining
the lean muscle that is realistic, such as packing
on 7 to 10 pounds of lean muscle in one year. The reason for
failure here is not what popular fitness culture refers to
as "hard gainer" genetics, but rather simply improper
training with insufficient recovery and sub-optimal dietary
is possible to find people with genetics that allow them to
gain lean muscle more quickly than others, but even the most
genetically gifted person would be hard pressed to gain more
than 10 to 12 pounds of lean muscle mass in one year. In the
rare cases where a person is able to pack on more muscle in
slightly less time than mentioned here, it is unlikely that
the initial rate of gain would be sustained. The only exception
that allows for "rapid muscle gain" is steroid use,
which is replete with serious side effects such weakening
connective tissue, Gynecomastia (male breast enlargement),
and weakening of heart valves.
have listened to outrageous claims such as, "I can put
an inch on my arms in one week". Really? Then in one
year shouldn't this persons arms be 52" larger? How about
giving a little room for overzealousness in this claim and
ask for only 26" in one year. Impossible. How about being
ultra conservative with this moronic claim and giving the
benefit of the doubt and accepting only a 12" gain in
arm size in one year which would be 1" per month on the
arms. These gains never happen. Funny how these claims are
only talked about but never officially measured and recorded.
by a promise
amongst athletes is getting trapped by the promise of gaining
10 pounds of lean muscle in the short 4 months of off-season
training by eating more protein and hitting the weight room.
Football and hockey are the sports most afflicted with this
popular myth. In fact the human body cannot naturally synthesize
10 pounds of lean muscle in 4 months. If this were true, any
person who put their mind to it could be close to Mr. Olympia
size within one year, but of course this never happens. What
does happen though, is many athletes gain pounds of fat along
with 2 to 4 pounds of muscle and that shows up on the scale
as the promised "10 pound increase". The fastest
natural lean muscle gain I have witnessed personally as a
coach is 7 pounds in 6 months. Maybe others have seen marginally
more on rare occasions. Furthermore to even come close to
gaining 10 pounds of muscle in the 4 month off season a football
or hockey athlete would need to dedicate 100% of their training
to mass building and therefore neglect training speed, power,
agility, and skill. Any way you look at it, this claim is
definitely a myth.
reason if we extrapolate any of these claims, within 2 years
of regular training and eating "extra protein" a
person would be larger than the largest bodybuilder ever.
In fact bodybuilders take 3 to 5 years and longer
to build their bodies. The truth is the purposed results of
"special" training, supplements, and large amounts
of protein intake are never born out in the exercising population.
If all these claims were true, every year there would be another
million or so people who gained 20 to 50 pounds of lean muscle
mass over one years time of training. Every high school should
have enormous muscular males bursting at the seems as teenage
males are one of the largest users of ergogenic supplements.
So where are all these gigantic people? We don't see it because
the claims aren't true.
are two popular protein myths; the one you've been reading
about here regarding eating extra protein and gaining muscle,
and two; eating extra protein and less carbohydrates to lose
fat. It's important to notice that both of these claims employ
one of the common "red flags" that identifies a
myth; an extreme claim that promises something that is far
beyond normal expectations.
muscle gain is just a big a myth as rapid
fat loss, and both these myths play right into our emotions.
fact, consuming too much protein (more than 2 grams of protein
per kilogram of muscle mass per day) could lead to abnormal
liver function, over stress the kidney's, and be entirely
here for an article on calculating the amount of calories
you need, and grams of protein per day)
have been coaching since 1987 and I have never once witnessed
or even heard of a legitimate case of either rapid muscle
gain or rapid fat loss. Every day I'm in more than one fitness
centre, and every day I see the same people trying the same
gimmicks for years and year after year their gains are either
nonexistent or they simply match normal expected gains. I
am always in communication with other coaches and trainers,
always in communication with athletes, and again never once
have I ever seen or heard of even one person legitimately
achieving the unrealistic changes claimed through these all
to common myths. There are however always those people who
say that they have made the gains or they "know somebody"
who made the gains. Every time I have investigated what these
individuals say, there is always a dead end. There is no proof
of anything. If these myths had any truth to them, the population
would bare the evidence; there would be millions of extremely
muscular and lean people, and at least in the population that
exercises regularly and consumes extra protein and supplements
I should see those persons achieve the claimed results over
and over, but I don't, and I don't know anybody who ever has
or likely will.- Cris LaBossiere
a readers challange to
this article, and
Cris LaBossiere's response
here to download free software for finding the caloric and
nutrient content of foods. This will take you to a USDA
web page with piles of helpful nutrition resources.
© 2004 Rhino Fitness